The present invention is directed to a device for splicing the ends of a pair of light waveguides with the assistance of a clamping arrangement which mutually aligns the waveguide ends in a V-shaped centering groove relative to a melting device which fuses the ends of the waveguides together.
An example of a device for splicing the ends of the light waveguides together is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,870 and European published patent application No. 025585, both of which are based on the same Swiss application. The device of this patent has a clamping device for each of the light waveguide ends which are to be welded together with one of the clamping devices being axially displaceable. Thus, the light waveguides, which are clamped in these devices must already be precisely inserted in the welding position. The manual movement of the second light waveguide end relative to the already-secured light waveguide end then occurs with the second displaceable clamping device. The surface of the light waveguide ends are subsequently melted with the assistance of a gas burner and the ends will then unite to one another on the basis of surface tension. This device requires an extremely precise setting of all the elements with auxiliary devices that are manually operated. To assist in the operation of the setting of the elements, an optical device is provided to enable observation of the setting steps. The production of a weld location thus greatly depends on the manual dexterity of the respective operator of the device.